


Hatching Hitch

by Tonko



Series: Grand Line Weyr [1]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pern
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonko/pseuds/Tonko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Smoker usually enjoyed hatchings. Ace usually disrupted his routines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hatching Hitch

**Author's Note:**

> I am a massive sucker for Dragonriders of Pern AUs because I have a minor kink for dragon mating flights (or what may be my version of them, as RP'd for years in a Pern PBEM roleplay).
> 
> This fic series was not informed by the Impel Down/Marineford arcs, written before those were underway, and probably owes a lot more to fanon than canon--though back then there wasn't much to go on anyway.
> 
> Apologies for any jossed characterization, not least is removing Ace without much remorse (his or mine) from Whitebeard.

Smoker ground his teeth and wished he had a cigar to bite down on, but one didn't smoke in the hatching caverns.

That damned brat from the Whitebeard flotilla had finagled his way right into the seat on the bleachers next to him. Portgas D. Ace grinned outward from his casual slouch, both elbows up on the back of the bench, idiotic hat brim concealing the mischevious eyes with which the bare-chested sailor brat was currently regarding the hatching sands before them.

Portgas was certainly entitled to the spot--an envoy from one of the four most powerful flotillas in the Grand Line territory had the right to claim a seat next to the Weyrleader for this event, but Smoker would just as soon have kicked him facefirst onto the sand. Definitely. If Hina wouldn't have done the same to him immediately afterwards. And if it wouldn't have caused a major uproar among the moron's entourage, and damage relations with the Whitebeard group.

Damn diplomacy anyway, he growled silently, glowering forward again to watch Orith once again rearrange her eggs, Hina standing on the sand to the side while the gold fussed.

 _Don't get so agitated_ , Seigith told him, sounding as amused as Smoker was aggravated. _He likes to be near you. I think he's cute._

 _You would,_ Smoker bit back, squashing any other reaction to the dragon's words, and the big bronze just laughed into his mind, affectionately offering some soothing to his rider, even if Smoker frankly _wanted_ to be annoyed with this seagoing moron. The alternative, offered suggestively by Ace himself during their first meeting after he'd become weyrleader, when the sailor had hitched one leg up on his desk and casually leaned back, presenting a tanned and muscled expanse of bare upper body, was out of the question. Not that either Ace or Seigith let up on the suggestions that he "live a little," in Ace's words or _have fun, you're allowed_ , in Seigith's. Smoker may not have felt the same unequivocal disapproval of everything Ace was anymore, but the suggestive looks and double-meaning laden conversation were just disruptions to his duties. Nothing more.

So, damn diplomacy, and damn having to suck up to the sailors, and thus endure Portgas' maddening presence, to get it. But the Grand Line, this strip of scattered islands and the sea-roving nomads that traveled the waters around them was under his protection, the Weyr was no longer a dissolute, self-interested entity, and the whole territory was slowly coming together.

 _If you weren't so concerned with appearances, you could just get up and move,_ Seigith suggested airily, and chuckled as Smoker replied with a mute sending of frustrated annoyance. He had to stay put, and that was that. It certainly wasn't like he _wanted_ to. Seigith's ongoing interest in Ace baffled him. Each time the sailor visited, he riled Smoker up with open glee, getting under his skin like no one else could, and Seigith always reacted with approval. Some sympathy, yes, except the bronze seemed to appreciate the sailor more than anything else. But Smoker held tight to his discipline, and so today he would indeed maintain appearances.

Those appearances were what he'd been trying to beat into the head of every weyrling who'd impressed since he'd become Weyrleader, that weyrfolk and sailors and holders belonged as allies. Once the old weyrwoman had died, and her gold with her, Hina's Orith had been next to rise. Seigith had caught her, and together they'd finally had the authority above wingleader and junior goldrider to make the sweeping changes required to pull the whole ragged outfit together.

Not that the territory's change had been all of his own doing, as much as he was pained to admit it. Farther down the bleachers, nearer to the cave mouth and totally ignoring any traditional seating arrangements that let higher ranks take spots nearer to the eggs, Monkey D. Luffy, was sitting himself down. The young Lord of Grand Line Hold, surrounded by his ever-present crew. Crew, not staff. None of them even held proper recognized ranks. Grand Line Hold, for all its incredible good influence on the quality of life in the territory, had its own very idiosyncratic--to put it lightly--way of functioning to which usual rules constantly failed to apply.

That brat had appeared in a little roving ship of his own, set off from a small fringe island, and had collected a formidable group of people under his flag, then pummeled and beaten his way through the warlords and predatory ships of the territory until he stood on top of the heap, and had taken gleeful control of the Hold that ruled the largest single island in the territory and the smaller ones closest to it.

Smoker had followed his single-minded career with dread that had slowly transformed to (extremely) grudging awe. Smoker hated the flotillas, called sea-snakes by so many, the vermin of the ocean. But the brat and his fanatically loyal entourage had gone so far with cleaning up some of the islands, making some seaways safe again, that whipping the Weyr into equal shape had gone from being a pointless goal--creating a force to protect a place not worth protecting--to one that would finally let Grand Line Weyr become the equal of the Weyrs on the northern and southern continents, and see them once again welcome at the yearly Weyr council.

Appreciating the brat was hard not to do, in the end, but Smoker preferred to do it from a distance, because up close, Lord Luffy seemed... indescribably stupid. Often hauled out of kitchens or games or some body of water (the idiot couldn't swim) by one of his seconds, until something came down to the wire, and Smoker had seen in person more than once, the brat's undeniable and unflagging _goodness_ in the face of injustice or cruelty or oppression...

And, naturally, it figured that the slightly older, but equally aggravating Portgas, the second-division fleet commander in Whitebeard's flotilla and the most influential person on the seas in the Weyr's immediate area, was the young Lord's _brother_...

"AAAAACE!!" came a joyous bawl from Lord Luffy, and Smoker manfully resisted the urge to smack a hand over his face. Seigith's amused reaction did not help matters.

Portgas flicked his hat brim up slightly and grinned at his little brother "Luffy!" He sketched a rough salute in his direction. "Thanks for taking care of him!" he called, and Smoker realized Ace was talking not to Luffy, but to Luffy's crew, who all acknowledged the gesture at once with expressions ranging from polite long-suffering to amused resignation.

The brat's red-headed second, the one who dealt with all the hold's trading and monetary deals, reached up and yanked her lord down by the back of his bright red tunic, and he sat with a thump and grinned at her. The long-nosed tinkerer of their group pointed past Luffy from behind, directing Luffy's gaze to the eggs, and whatever he said made Luffy's eyes widen and sparkle with awe. The expression was mirrored by the hold's young masterhealer, who'd been a chubby kid the last time they'd all come here together, but had since hit a massive growth spurt and towered over all of them.

"Brat," Smoker muttered, and that made Ace cock his head to grin at him.

"He's twenty-one now, you know," Ace's grin deepened, the set of his mouth turning suggestive again, "but if you think he's too young, there's always me, Captain."

"Stop calling me that," Smoker growled, ignoring the innuendo. "I'm no sea-snake." Somehow satisfied with that, Ace turned back to the eggs. The candidates were starting to file in, and Smoker sent a silent thank-you, once again, to the Weyrs on the mainlands that had been willing to provide him with Searched candidates.

The mistrust of dragonriders in the Grand Line ran deep after so many years of the Weyr protecting little more than its own interests, flying Thread erratically, some riders even poaching and stealing from the farmers and holds in their entitlement... Search dragons had been turned away from so many places. Sometimes with arrows.

A few years had done much to put younger riders back in their places. Concerning tithes, Smoker expected it to be years before holds other than Grand Line offered them anything. And justly so. But since the riders had been forced to stop taking whatever they wanted from people, many dragons had become adept at fishing. Food was never a problem, and slowly, slowly, Smoker and Hina were coaxing the small holds and cotholds with crafted goods to trade with them.

Luffy had been more than happy to offer whatever his land had to share (while Nami, who actually held the purse strings, negotiated far more stiffly) so with that goodwill, Smoker hoped the rest of the land would someday follow.

In the back of Smoker's mind, Seigith's alertness increased suddenly, and the humming of the dragons intensified.

Smoker watched Ace sit up and lean forward, posture going from relaxed to fascinated in an instant. The Whitebeard tattoo on his back was half-hidden by his hat, knocked back to hang by its strings and allow Ace as full a view as possible of what was starting on the sands. Hatchings were one of the few things that could shut Ace up for a few consecutive minutes. Ever since Smoker had risen to Weyrleader, Ace's visits had risen in frequency, the sailor showing up on the slightest pretext, and if there was a hatching, the likelihood of him appearing just because he was "in the area" rose sharply.

The draw of a hatching wasn't hard to understand, Smoker didn't begrudge Ace that... much. Never mind Ace's continuing interruptions of Smoker's routines and responsibilities, a hatching truly was a time to sit back and watch something wonderful.

Eggs rocked and twitched, cracking upright to spill squawking dragonets onto the sand or tipping to let their inhabitants break out and stand up quickly. Green, green, blue, a bronze, and Smoker smiled. This wasn't a large clutch, and bronzes were always rare. Four more greens, and more blues, each dragonet finding their rider. Some running as soon as they found their feet, some sitting paused in consideration. It always happened so fast, mere minutes of the amazing spectacle. Cheers filled the cavern as each hatchling made its choice. And too quickly, it was down to the last few, two browns and a green. The green made her choice without hesitation, running to a young woman in the middle of the line. One of the browns also chose a female rider, this one a girl of perhaps twelve.

The last brown was sitting, head tilted, while the candidates stood and shuffled. A few more audacious ones called out to the hatchling. Smoker listened to Seigith's words of encouragement to the dragonet, the bronze urging the newborn brown to go to the one that fit him. Seigith didn't seem worried at all, and that was reassuring. Dragonets who couldn't find a rider did not survive, just like a dragon commited suicide if their rider died. But Seigith sounded patient, not concerned or urgent. _You may take your time to chose._ There was a brief pause, and then Smoker's eyebrows crept up as Seigith said _None?_ Another pause. _Ah, but you must go to that one, then._

 _From the stands?_ Smoker asked his dragon, understanding the dragonet's hesitation now.

 _Yes,_ Seigith replied, and Smoker watched the brown move to the side of the sands. There were many of Impression age seated in the stands, and it was hardly unheard of for this to happen, though it had only occured a handful of times since Smoker had Impressed Seigith. Dragonets Impressing someone in the stands usually went for someone who had simply missed being Searched; a young apprentice or crafter, or a weyrbrat who was a little younger or older than was normally allowed as a candidate. It could throw a snarl into administration or heir matters if the dragonet chose an older person or someone in line to inherit a holding.

The brown dragonet looked confident now that he stepped onto the stone stairway between two sets of bleachers and Smoker hoped that he hadn't chosen anyone too inconvenient.

To Smoker's approval, no one had to be stopped from approaching the little brown. Everyone close to him knew well enough not to try to distract him from his goal, but Smoker felt his misgivings growing as the dragonet stopped at the row he was seated in. Many high-ranking non-rider Weyr staff were in that row, and a few visiting dignitaries. He could see the ambivalence in the faces of those young enough to be a potential choice. To Impress was something of a dream for almost any Weyr inhabitant, and many a holder as well, though all staring at the dragonet were well aware of the difficulty involved.

Dragonets normally Impressed people between the ages of ten and twenty, though here and there people in the stands had been chosen as old as mid-thirties.

There was one here, however, that wasn't nearly that old, was only a few years beyond the usual top age bracket for candidacy and Smoker's misgivings vanished, to be replaced by a bone-deep sense of long-suffering, as the brown dragonet stopped at the feet of one high-ranking flotilla commander and all-around loose cannon, Portgas D. Ace.

 _Oh, by the First Egg,_ Smoker groaned inwardly. Seigith's glee was entirely unsympathetic.

Ace had stood up to let the dragonet pass him by, but he sat down with a heavy thump into his seat when the brown turned bright blue faceted eyes on him. The room was silent for a split second, before an ear-piercing cheer rang out.

"AAAAACE, THAT'S GREAAAT!!" Luffy was standing balanced on the shoulders of his green-haired second, both arms straight up in the air and a huge grin splitting his face in two. Next to the impassive-looking swordsman, the long-nosed tinker and the healer were both just as enthused. The long-legged blond second who, it was said, did all the cooking at Grand Line Hold, despite being reknowned for his vicious kick-using style of fighting, reached up quickly when Luffy started to fall backwards.

On the heels of Luffy's cheer, the whole cavern erupted, and even Smoker had to smile a little at the way Ace's face had gone from incredulous to stunned to unadulteratedly _happy_.

"Merath," Ace said, leaning down, and Merath reared up to bump his muzzle against Ace's face. Ace caressed the brown's chin and down his neck in a smooth motion, and then he looked up at Smoker. No smirk or teasing now. His eyes seemed near-overcome, they were wet, and Smoker felt a current of mutual understanding pass between them. Ace knew, now, what it was like for Smoker with Seigith. The security, yes, but the deep responsibility of a life that would not continue without your own, the knowledge that in your hands now was the lifelong fight against Thread to protect those who lived in the Weyr's territory.

Though for this moment, Smoker was willing to acknowledge that Ace knew responsibilty already. Whatever Smoker would always think of those who made their life on the water, Ace had only ever shown integrity and honour and decency in all official dealings with the Weyr. Merath had chosen a completely worthy rider.

It was Whitebeard who would feel the loss of this finest member of his vast crew.

Seigith was leaning on Smoker with a mental embrace, joy at this Impression pouring off him. _Sap,_ Smoker said gruffly. Seigith didn't even bother to point out Smoker's own softhearted reaction to hatchings, which was also happening in full force right now and moreso than usual, with an Impression having occured right before his eyes.

He wasn't about to let Ace know any of that, however. "C'mon Portgas," he jerked his head down towards the sand. "You're a weyrling now, and you're under me, so get."

It really was as simple as that. Ace _was_ a weyrling now, and even Whitebeard couldn't, and wouldn't, even _suggest_ separating a dragon from his chosen rider, or separating a weyrling pair from the support of the Weyr. Not this Weyr.

"Under you, Captain?" Ace asked as he stood up again, one hand on Merath's head, the other reaching back to place his hat back on his own head. He winked at Smoker. "All right then."

Smoker felt the all-too-familiar irritation return in full force at that, and he reached out to pluck the hat from Ace's grip. "Give me that. It's not regulation. And put on a shirt!"

Ace's smile didn't fade as he led Merath off the bleachers and towards where the dragonet could eat the first meal his stomach would be crying for.

Smoker watched him go and really, really wanted a cigar.


End file.
